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CS777 - Computer Animation
Spring 2003
This is not a course web yet - but I am optimistic it will be one soon!
 who are these guys? and what are they doing on my class web page? |
Instructor: Michael
Gleicher Class Meetings: MWF 11:00-12:15 |
What you will have to do in this class:
- Participate in class!
- You will only get out of this class what you put into it. And since
learning this stuff is a team effort, you must contribute.
Foremost, it means that you must come to class, you must be prepared (eg: read what I ask you to read, ...), you must participate in discussions, you must do the group things, read the web page, ...
Basically, it is your job to make sure you are contributing, and that I notice it. Sitting quietly in the back of class is not sufficient. - Do Art Assignments
- There will be 4 "art assignments" this year. You must do them. They will be graded check/no check (since I am not going to evaluate your artistic abilities).
- Do some other smaller tasks
- Over the course of the semester, I will ask you to do some small tasks. For example, I will ask you to write a review of a paper, or I might ask you to discuss something in class.
- Do the two projects
- Doing a project doesn't just mean handing it in at the end. It means making all of the intermediate "checkpoints" as well.
How you will be graded:
The only things that will have grades assigned are the two projects. The exact weighting between them for the final grade is to be determined. Probably 40%/60%.
Everything else is check/no check, and factors into your grade multiplicatively. So if you only do 3 out of 4 art assignments (75%), your final grade is 75% of what you get for the projects.
Getting a zero in something like participation would be devistating to you as 0 times anything is zero. Failing this class would be bad for both of us.
Class Schedule:
This class is over-scheduled (e.g. it is scheduled for 225 minutes per week, although it is only a 3 hour class). This was done so we can cancel approximately 1/3 of the lectures. I will give you as much warning as possible for this so you can plan to take advantage of days off.
Group Work Policy:
Everything in this class will be done in a group. The art assignments and project 1 will be done in pairs, project 2 will be done in groups of 4.
I want to encourage everyone to work with different partners for each project. I have not decided whether this will be the rule or just a suggestion. So if there's someone who you really want to do project 2 with, don't work with them on the art assignments, since you might not be able to have the same partners for 2 different things.
Everyone in the group will get the same grade for the project. Working in groups is tough, especially in classes. Unlike the real world, there are no managers, the groups are short lived so you don't have time to learn to to work together, ...
I recommend you read this article from the Tomorrow's Professor mailing list (a great mailing list for soon-to-be and new faculty members). I am willing to help you work out group personnel issues. My success rate with group work in this class has gotten pretty good (last year no groups imploded).
Late Policy:
Please try to do things on time. If you make every reasonable effort to get things done on time, I will try to accomodate you.
Often, deadlines are truly "hard." For example, if we are going to show art projects in class, you really will have to get them to us beforehand so we can make sure that they can be shown. The checkpoints for the projects really are there so we can keep you on track and avoid crises at the end. (OK, crises at the end aren't completely avoidable, but by keeping you on track, we can raise the probability of your success).
Tools and Computing:
For this class, you will have access to the Win2K computing facilities in the CS department (the ones in B240 CS&S are particularly good for doing graphics stuff). You are welcome to use any computers you want.
For many of the assignments and projects, we will ask you to use a commercial animation package. Since Maya is the only one we can provide to you, it is the one we recommend. If you want to use something else, please talk to me so I can talk you out of it. I am not sure if Maya is the best animation system out there, but it is the one we can provide everyone access with, and there is a big advantage to everyone using the same thing.
Readings:
As of today, I have not decided what I am doing about the readings for this class. In the beginning I will provide PDFs of papers and some paper copies.
